HAROLD BUBIL: Irma and our expo: Learning from the experts

And with good reason. It was big, and it was bad. Almost everyone in the state east of Pensacola was affected.

Even Daniel Noah, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Tampa Bay Area office in Ruskin, used a word to describe the storm that made me shudder.

“Scary.”

For some reason, I thought hurricanes were all-business for weather professionals. But they have homes and families, too.

Said Noah, “This was the first time in the 15 years I’ve been here that I put up my storm shutters. So it was a scary forecast, and not fun to think about the possibilities.

“In fact, before I left for work, I took pictures of my neighborhood and the trees, thinking, ‘This could all be gone when I get back.’ ”

As it turned out, the damage was limited in the Tampa Bay area but devastating down south, as the skittish storm turned into Collier County at the last moment. Thousands of people down there still have both landscape debris and their flood-damaged furniture and other household items waiting on the curb for pick-up.

“If Irma had waited just four more hours” to make that turn, Noah said in a telephone interview, “we would have had a lot more impact in Florida than we did. She would have gone into the Gulf, re-intensified and made landfall somewhere between Venice and Crystal River.”

If only we had known, on Saturday, Sept. 9, exactly where Irma would go.

“We still struggle with communicating the threat,” Noah admitted. And that will be a topic of discussion when the Herald-Tribune holds its first Hurricane Recovery Seminar from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18, at Sarasota Main Plaza (next to Hollywood 20). PGT Custom Windows & Doors is the Presenting Sponsor.

The “weather enterprise,” including the National Hurricane Center and state and county emergency managers, are doing a lot better job of tracking hurricanes, thanks to the new GOES-16 high-resolution satellite, coupled with computer technology that makes possible the sophisticated forecast graphics that you see in various media.

Still, that black track line moved left and right over the state, alarming everyone and motivating 6.5 million people to evacuate their homes.

“We saw the intensification of Irma” with more accuracy, said Noah, who is unable to attend the expo; SNN’s meteorology staff are scheduled to be on site. “We visualized the data differently. With computer power and satellites, we are getting better at forecasting the path and intensity, but we still have a long way to go.”

Complaints from the public are helping forecasters refine the message, he said.

“One thing we learned is how to communicate threat. People said, ‘Oh, your skinny black line went up the east coast, then it went up the west coast,’ and they think that is a big change in the forecast track. In fact, when storms parallel our peninsula, a small change in the track makes a big difference in who gets impacted."

Understanding the threat is critical for all concerned, and the state’s geography and demographics put a lot of pressure on forecasters and emergency managers.

Almost one in three Floridians evacuated, “and some of those people didn’t have to evacuate,” Noah said. “They weren’t in a storm surge zone, they live in a well-constructed home, and they would have been better off, and safer, to stay rather than driving to Atlanta.

“Emergency management has to prepare for the potential. They have to look at the realistic, worst-case scenario and base their surge evacuations on that.”

And what about the lines on the map that predicted 140-mph winds in Sarasota and storm surges of 10 to 15 feet? We misunderstood the information, Noah said.

“What we did see was that a lot of people were using the new graphics incorrectly on social media, saying, ‘We’re definitely going to get 15 feet of storm surge.’ No, what that graphic means is you have a 1 in 10 chance of getting 15 feet of storm surge. So we still struggle with communicating the threat.”

That 140-mph line was scary. I asked Noah, “What did I get wrong?”

It was simply a matter of timing and subtle changes in steering currents high in the atmosphere, he said.

“If Irma had turned four hours later than she did, the hurricane would have gone into the Gulf of Mexico, would have intensified to a Category 3 or 4 storm, and would have made landfall on the west coast of Florida as a major hurricane. The potential was there. The fact that she went into Naples and up the spine of Florida weakened her considerably, and, luckily for us, that wasn’t realized.”

Admission is free for the Hurricane Recovery Expo, which will feature panel discussions on weather, mitigation, preparation, evacuation, insurance, construction law and real estate. Companies that sell or install hurricane-related products and services will be set up in booths to meet the public. Vendors may contact Debbi.Reynolds@heraldtribune.com or Harold for more information. Harold Bubil is the semi-retired real estate editor of the Herald-Tribune; contact him at Harold.Bubil@heraldtribune.com

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